What sort of things should I look for to make a perfect bengal diet? When looking at the ingrediants on most packets of cat food, I have no idea whether there's enough of the right things in there.

So what are the right things for bengals?

Bengals thrive on the same diet as any other domestic cat to be honest. Any good quality high protein cat food is fine for Bengals or any other cat. If you want to feed a high quality diet, go for a grain-free, low carb brand.

Lots of complete dry foods to choose from such as Royal canin, James wellbeloved, Eaglepack, Hills, Orijen...And any good quality wet food if you want to feed it. Chicken, cooked fish etc.. as a supplement food is also fine

_________________
Best Wishes,
Maddy

Some bengals enjoy raw meat as a treat, but not all. Also, some bengals have food sensitivities to wheat and glutens. Again, this does not apply to all. Mikesch for example won't touch raw meat and gets soft, stinky poo on anything with wheat in it, but my two half-bengal fosters can digest pretty much anything without problems.

The natural diet of a cat (e.g. rodents and other small animals) would contain on average (I can dig up the reference, if anyone is interested in the details):

75% moisture
25% dry matter including:
* 35-45% protein (some prey up to 60%)
* 15-40% fat (typically around 20%)
* 5-12% ash (typically 5-8%; this represents minerals e.g. from bone)
* 3-8% carbohydrates (typically 3-5%)

or, recalculated:
75% moisture
8.75-15% protein
3.75-10% fat
1.25-3% ash
0.75-2% carbohydrates

So if you want to feed cat food that would match the nutrient profile of natural prey as closely as possible, it would have to be wet food any way you look at it. Dry food is a convenience of modern life, but more often than not it is the equivalent of "junk food" for cats. You might want to be doubly critical with choosing good quality dry food and provide lots of opportunities for the cats to drink water.

The AAFCO profiles (based on feeding trials) say your cat needs a minimum of (per dry weight):
26% protein (30% for kittens)
9% fat
3% ash (counting together all the required minerals)
(Note that natural prey contains a lot more of all of these: up to twice as much protein and up to 2-4 times as much fat and minerals.)

Your cat also needs:
Taurine (needs twice as much in dry food as in wet food)
Vitamin A in addition to other vitamins (they can't convert beta-carotene)
Linoleic acid and Arachidonic acid (they can't synthesize those)

Your cat does not need:
Carbohydrates (they get their energy from protein instead)
Vitamin C (they can synthesize it, so it is not a vitamin for them, but it is often added as a natural preservative)

The majority of the protein in the food should be meat-based. Cats can't digest protein from plant or grain sources (e.g. glutens) very well, plus it has not the right composition of amino acids required by a carnivore. So I always watch out that the top ingredients include a good quality meat source. Poultry and red meats would be best, fish is ok but not exclusively. Low quality meat sources to avoid would be:
*mystery meat (e.g. generic "animal" instead of a named meat source such as "lamb," "chicken," etc. - cats should not eat pork, but if the food only gives a generic meat source, it might include pork)
*by-products (essentially rendered slaughterhouse waste)
*digests (very low quality control if any in the US)
*unspecified fat (e.g. "animal fat" - could be recycled restaurant grease and might include pork again, e.g. bacon fat - probably better suited for the production of biodiesel than pet food)

Other things to avoid would be artificial preservatives (e.g. BHA, BHT), and colorings (cat's don't care what their food looks like, they care about the smell instead).

I've been reading the posting on here for a little while, and finally registered as tameeria made a great post.

Someone asked whats the 'perfect bengal diet'.

As tameeria posted, cats are obligate carnivores, and cannot even process carbohydrates of any kind. So anything that isnt meat or bone can't even be converted into energy by a cat.

One thing that is incorrect with tameerias post is the part about ash content.

The levels and types of compounds in cat food is measured by heating it up in differing chemical cocktails to seperate the component parts of the food for classification.

Ash is a byproduct of this process. Although it was correctly noted that the Ash was probably minerals from bone there should be NO ash in a cat food.

The minerals should STILL be minerals in catfood, they should not be superheated to turn them into ash whilst not in a scientific testing environment. Cat food companies use ash and grains as fillers, the only reason for this is commercial gain.

The perfect diet for any cat, domestic or otherwise would be:

Moisture
Protein
Animal fat and oils
Vitamins Minerals

There is moisture in all animal products, mostly in lean muscle tissue and some in organs.
Proteins and amino acids are found in lean muscle tissue and internal organs.
Fat is found on the animal structure and within internal organs.
Vitamins and minerals are again, within lean muscle tissue, internal organs and fat.
Other cat essential minerals such as calcium are found in bone.

So by that, 100% of all dry cats foods would not and do not make a suitable 'perfect' feed for cats.
A good 90% of commerically available wet foods are not brilliant either.

I could write another 500 words on how bad most commerical wet foods are although some are better, such as Natures Menu and Almo Nature, which as far as buy it from a shop foods go, are the best in the UK.

So a 'perfect' diet in relative terms would be:

Raw, lean muscle tissue attached to edible bones.
Some organ meat.

And absolutely nothing else.

Its a bit impractical I know, but if you want the perfect diet, then anything perfect is never easy to obtain is it.

You're right that "ash" is generated during the testing procedure. It's the residue that is left when the food is burned up to measure caloric content. This ash contains all the minerals from the food, but that does not mean the food contains any ash or had ash added to it. That's a common confusion. The ash value is often listed with the "guaranteed analysis" and is just indicative of the minerals in the food that will turn into ash during the testing procedure, not any ash actually in the food. The difficulty is guessing which minerals this "ash" is composed of (e.g. calcium-phosphorus ratio etc). Absolutely no ash would mean the food contained no minerals at all.

very informative again tameeria, i love it when you get technical.

hi montana, i'm glad you've decided to join us.

this all makes me even happier about my decision to start feeding raw minced rabbit. it was recommended by a breeder friend & i've been using it for about 10 days now, along with royal canin biscuits. i can already see the difference in my cats, their coats are glossier & their muscle tone is definately better.

it comes frozen & i defrost it as needed. it contains meat, bones & organs. it doesn't look pleasant, but it certainly seems to be good for the cats & they love it!!

_________________
Best Wishes,
Maddy

certainly, i'll give my friend a call tomorrow (she orders it as she has a big freezer, then i get it from her ).

There is a specific term for the residue of burned/charred animal products. It's a mineral called "Taurine" so if you see that on a package, it's the very same thing as "Ash". Someone correct me if I'm mistaken but I believe i've done my research.

Now we've just beeen entertained by Bungee and Pepper. I was cutting up lamb to marinade for a Greek dinner later in the week and thought I may as well see how they take to a piece of scrap.

They murdered it (and I just had to thow them more) Delicate little Pepper grew to twice her size, growled like a Lion and Bungee didn't dare touch her lamb. After stalking and killing the bits, they ate every last morsel.

I'm so proud!!

(they've never been picky eaters but will not touch the Orijen - they pick the JW bits from the bowl when I mix them. I am dissapointed but hey, I'll just give them real meat instead. They Love all 4 flavours of the JW so...no big deal)

Taurine is not a mineral, but an essential aminosulfonic acid for cats. There should be natural taurine in meat, but its activity is often lost during processing. That's why it is usually added to cat food.